LOL! I'm guessing these varieties of gluttony were a source of ongoing consternation for Thomas, who supposedly was a rather "large" man.

- - -

Anyone have any thoughts on the Keating article I linked to above? It's rather typical of the kind of teaching one hears in Contemplative Outreach, and I agree with bdb that it shows evidence of influence from Bernadette Roberts' writings. One wonders how this squares with the Catholic dogma of the communion of saints, resurrection of the body, and even heaven, which we believe to be as much a "place" as a "state of mind." Who would be the inhabitants of heaven in a pantheistic monism?

Through all of these many threads where we've discussed this topic from various angles, I continue to maintain the indestructible existence of a human agent of intelligence and freedom. Truly, "I am that." Whether this be considered "self" or "consciousness" or whatever often seems a semantical issue (e.g., how one defines "self"), but this agent I'm referring to is essentially spiritual in nature and what I understand the experience of soul to be.

I like father Keating so I try not to think to much about the consequences of his theology... He clearly doesn't blur the soul and God, because in many places he states that we're not God, in "Invitation" he even says that it's better to be "like God" than to "be God". In dialogues with Wilber recorded few years ago, when Wilber started to talk about the non-dual realization, Keating said that "one with God" is a metaphor, a language of love, not metaphysics, and said that in Christian tradition there's always "two-ness" of soul and God. So he doesn't fall into metaphysical non-duality. Yet, in his recent books like "Intimacy" or "Manifesting" he says that there's this "further" stage after spiritual marriage, which is controversial. When he says that in that stage the JOC's pane is not only pure and invisible, but is shattered and disappears, he doesn't mean metaphysical annihilation, but the lack of sense of separate self.
The influence of Roberts is clear, "the grace of Ascension", and Keating thinks that this is a higher stage than spiritual marriage. I don't agree with that. But I wonder why Keating ascribed to this teaching in the first place! If he experienced infused contemplation, why would he turn to the no-self, Roberts' framework?

The point you, Phil, make is that to affirm the grace of ascension as higher than spiritual marriage implicitly suggests that we can reach non-dual consciousness without going through spiritual marriage - the Buddhist and Advaitan way. This is unacceptable for Christianity. Keating avoids this kind of statements, saying that Christians must go through spiritual marriage in order to enter the "further stage", there's no by-passing, so the Buddhist, supposedly, didn't have the same experience of God. This would be a more benevolent interpretation of Keating's teaching, since we could say also that he just says that Buddhist reach the same point as Christians, but they just don't know that they experience God.

Anyway, I didn't notice in Keating any attempt to disregard the relationship with God and he clearly relates to God personally, even though he might have a no-self, non-dual realization too. Roberts doesn't seem to need personal God, Keating loves God - there's a huge difference.

He either wants to maintain similarities with Wilber and integral/non-dual people in order to cooperate in the spiritual transformation of the society and make the Church more open,
or he thinks that the Buddhists experience the same as, supposedly, he experiences in relationship with God, so he thinks they have access to personal God without conceptualizing it so. For some time I was convinced that Zen Buddhists through kensho experience the same love I was in touch with, because in my experience Zen was mixed with contemplation. But I don't think that this kind of misinterpretation could dwell for so long in such an experienced and intelligent man as father Keating. He also was a spiritual director for many years, so he knows a lot about Christian spiritual path.

Difficult questions...

quote:

Originally posted by Shasha:
[qb] [/qb]

Yes!

Beyond words!

Silence . . .

mateusz, I think you read Keating accurately, and I, too, like the man -- very much, in fact. As I noted earlier, we discussed this teaching on the Bernadette Roberts thread, and Johnboy made some of the same points that you have above.

This might be muddying the waters a bit, but I've had this sense for some time that there are different "versions" of Keating's teachings, including a phase where he was deeply influenced by Bernadette Roberts and Eastern teachings. Jim Arraj and I wrote a couple of letters to him back in the early 1990's, sharing some of our misgivings about some of what he was writing, then. Some of what Jim wrote is expressed here. I know we already have a lengthy discussion of centering prayer on this board, but I think the following quote helps to indicate something of the "muddle" that arose from some of the early teachings.

quote:

Here the critical question is whether Christian contemplation aims at the same goal as various forms of Buddhist and Hindu meditation. In response to a question about centering prayer: "Sometimes there are no thoughts. There is only my self-awareness. I don�t know whether to let go of it or be aware of it." Fr. Keating responds: "That is a crucial question. If you are aware of no thoughts, you are aware of something and that is a thought. If at that point you can lose the awareness that you are aware of no thoughts, you will move into pure consciousness. In that state there is no consciousness of self. When your ordinary faculties come back together again, there may be a sense of peaceful delight, a good sign that you were not asleep. It is important to realize that the place to which we are going is one in which the knower, the knowing, and that which is known are all one. Awareness alone remains. The one who is aware disappears along with whatever was the object of consciousness. This is what divine union is. There is no reflection of self. The experience is temporary, but it orients you toward the contemplative state. So long as you feel united with God, it cannot be full union." (11)

- from Arraj's book. That's not how I understand infused contemplation; it's more of an advaitan experience.

Then there was Keating's liberal use of Wilber's stages of spiritual growth, which formed the basis for his reformulation of the traditional stages of Christian growth. Later in the 90s, he seemed to have backed off a bit from his use of Wilber's work.

The thing from father Keating's teaching I had to really let go of is the "pure faith" notion. I really believed in that, and it helped me to survive through difficult nights, but I went to far (and I don't want to blame Keating for that). I just assumed that our goal is pure faith without any consolation, without feelings of love, without experiences, visions, delight and bliss. Just faith, peace and stable decision to follow Jesus. But - even though Mother Teresa of Calcutta affirms that kind of experience - many Christian mystics have completely different path, that ends in love and glory, and there's no "further step". I think pure faith might lead to a rejection of the gift of infused contemplation, and this is a very bad thing. Not to be overattached to feelings of love, but love of God cannot be just and only a decision. In fact, that is Eckhart's teaching in the treatise "On the good will". Love is pure will which doesn't even know that it loves. Controversial.

But in some deep nights there is no feeling of love, neither for God, nor for anyone, and there pure faith can be a saving grace...

mateusz wrote: I just assumed that our goal is pure faith without any consolation, without feelings of love, without experiences, visions, delight and bliss. Just faith, peace and stable decision to follow Jesus.

Yes, that's quite heroic, and for many, that seems to be how it goes. Jim Arraj calls this the "way of faith," emphasizing that if one has no consolations or contemplative experiences, one travels by faith, exercising one's will in acts of love, keeping the commandments, avoiding sin, etc. I have no problem with that whatsoever.

Where I do have a problem is with actually rejecting/denying experiences of consolation or a sense of God's loving presence because it is a "thought" and therefore inferior to some kind of pure contemplation in which only awareness remains. Even if Keating is not intending to imply an ontological situation where self disappears, I still disagree that this is what "infused contemplation" is. He might be describing an ecstatic state of some kind, or he might be placing metaphysical mystical experience as a stage higher than infused contemplation. His recent article in Richard Rohr's magazine (the one I cited above) does little to clarify his teaching, imo.

Here's a paragraph from Keating's book, The Mystery of Christ:

quote:

Jesus' invitation to "take up your cross every day and follow me" is a call to do what he actually did. As the Way, Jesus invites us to follow his example step-by-step into the bosom of the Father. As the Truth, he shares with us, through participation in his death on the cross, the experience of the transpersonal aspect of the Father. As the Life, he leads us to unity with the Godhead beyond personal and impersonal relationships. On the Christian path, God is known first as the personal God, then as the transpersonal God, and finally as the Ultimate Reality beyond all personal and impersonal categories. Since God's existence, knowledge and activity are one, Ultimate Reality is discovered to be That-which-is.

As he is speaking of "ultimate" experience, here, I think we see where he's really going with his teaching -- at least at during that time in his life. And, clearly, I'm hearing that experiences and notions of God as "personal" are early-stage stuff, a beginning. To my thinking, however, personal is a higher state of being than impersonal, and "transpersonal" usually turns out to be "impersonal." I would also maintain that while it's fine to speak of God as "That-Which-Is," to know God as such is more a metaphysical mystical experience. The revelation of God as Trinity, Loving, Hyper-personal, etc. is revelation of a higher order than God as That, Such, Absolute, etc. It seems that Keating is placing metaphysical mystical experience as a stage beyond inter-subjective mysticism, and actually affirming a kind of nondual metaphysics in the process. I think there are also problems with the way experiencing "Godhead" is mentioned.

This passage was mentioned in the Bernadette Roberts thread, but not really discussed. Here's another paragraph from the same chapter of The Mystery of Christ.

quote:

The death of Jesus on the cross was the death of his personal self, which in his case was a deified self. Christ's resurrection and ascension is his passage into the Ultimate Reality: the sacrifice and loss of his deified self to become one with the Godhead. Since all reality is the manifestation of the Godhead and Christ has passed into identification with It, Christ is present everywhere and in everything. The cosmos is now the body of the glorified Christ who dwells in every part of it.

Hmmm . . . well . . . yes . . . but . . .

Like you pointed out to BR, Paul encountered Christ as Jesus, not an impersonal God to say the least. And the post-resurrection appearances simply do not support Keating's notion at all.

It is quite unsual how "impersonal" is being used here, as is often the case among nondualists. As we've dicussed elsewhere, the intensity of cosmic presence seems to saturate the mind-body capacity for a response that continues to mirror the self without overwhelming its sensibilities. I wonder if this isn't happening with Keating, or at least at that point when he wrote what you are quoting. Graced supernatural anointing always seems to preserve and deepen personhood, but it isn't hard to understand how this would be lost via cosmic energy saturation via bodily nature where heart dilation could be absent or minimal. So one wonders how Keating would differentiate the personal from self, as personness is never lost among non-dualists. All you have to do is talk to them to see its radiance, or prick their not-so dissolved egos and watch the reaction.

Good points, w.c. I think you provide a good hypothesis for how to account for the kind of perception that nondualists experience. I've experienced some of what you're referring to (energy saturation) and one is disinclined to make distinctions in that state.

As you remind us of Paul's encounter with Jesus, we can also note, here, Jesus' promise to us that there are many rooms in his Father's mansion; presumably, for occupants. Also, that his greatest gift will be to show us the Father. There is just nothing in the teachings of the Gospels and early Fathers on "the final things" that suggests an ultimate destiny along the lines indicated by Keating in the quotes above.

In another thread, mateusz had some good reflection on some of the problems with Eckhart's teaching, especially on the Godhead. To my understanding, it's bad theology (from a Christian p.o.v.) to suggest that the divine nature can be encountered apart from God, whom we understand to be Trinity. That's as absurd as saying one encounters human nature apart from human beings. "Godhead," like "human nature," is an abstract concept that permits a description of the attributes or "whatness" of God and human beings, respectively. These attributes are real, of course, but only in the beings who manifest them. So the idea that one encounters the Persons of the Trinity then goes deeper to encounter something called the Godhead that is somehow deeper or beyond the Persons makes no sense to me. That would be like saying that in my relationship with my wife, our bond goes deeper than the interpersonal into some impersonal realization of human nature, where we realize our "whatness." To speak this way runs counter to the experience of personalizing aspect of love -- that love differentiates even as it unites. That's what we find in infused contemplation as well, which does not require some a priori silencing of thoughts and reflections.

Might there be different definitions for non duality. The system i was under felt non duality was a profound state of balance between body & mind that you seem to have experienced Phil.

Ajoy

Ajoy, we discussed above a few other ways people use the terms duality and non-duality.

What was the system you studied? I don't recall you sharing that before?

At stake in this and similar discussions is a proper understanding of what Christian apophatic mysticism is really all about. If this is understood to be primarily the encounter with God beyond all thoughts and images, then that narrows considerably what qualifies as contemplative experience. It also opens the door to justifying a wide range of meditative methods and techniques that are dynamically oriented toward heightening non-reflective awareness, as such seems to be, minimally, an a priori condition for mystical experience (if not the actual experience itself). It's a short step from here to affirming that apophatic mysticism is basically the same in all the world religions, and that it is really kataphatic/doctrinal issues that divide us, and the sooner we overcome these, the better. This seems to be one of the signs of our times, leading many to a wariness concerning Christian contemplative spirituality, as they fear it opens the door to a religious pluralism they can't accept intellectually.

quote:

Originally posted by Phil:
[qb] What was the system you studied? I don't recall you sharing that before? [/qb]

A combination of Toaism & Tibetan Buddhism.
Mostly i was trying to understand what i was
experiencing & why i was vering away from
Christianity in some of what i was experiencing.

As i look back on this now i would say my Native American Heritage was coming increasingly active during my Christian contemplative work. Would have been nice to have been told about my heritage.


Peace
Ajoy

What I'm writing here, might be as well pertinent to the "divinity and consciousness" thread.
I was thinking about personhood and "praying it through" too.

First I'll describe what I experienced today during and after the evening mass. I asked myself in a prayer what means for me to be a person or to have a self. And I definitely felt that I'm a person, distinct from God, distinct from the world and other persons. Then I felt that infused contemplation strengthens this experience of personhood in me. In the deep prayer there was an insight like a lightening that to be a person means TO BE CALLED BY NAME BY GOD. It was a powerful and moving experience that it is not I that create my own personhood, not I that possess it and am in charge of it, it is even not something inherent in me. I felt like my personhood is given to me by God Himself, in every moment, and that it is given by calling me personally by name. To be a person means for me that God loves ME, Mateusz, in a personal, individual and exceptional way, and calls my name to make me a person in front of Him.

It didn't felt like some kind of "contraction", separate self-sense or whatever. I felt that I could easily fall into oneness where there would be no difference between my open awareness and everything else. But feeling of being loved and chosen by God made me aware of my personhood and selfhood. So maybe there is self-assertion that is based on our self, where we make ourselves "Gods" and this should be deconstructed in our spiritual journey, and there is personhood that should be affirmed and brought into light, but we cant' do it ourselves, God has to do it calling us by name.

Then, even if we are enlightened non-dually, we can still affirm our personhood, when we have relationship with God and we are open to His voice calling us with love. This more or less happened to me recently, when I was called out of non-conceptual, pre-reflective awareness into relation of love, and was given a sense of self and personhood - different from "self-contraction" and different from "no-self".
perhaps it's an image of the Trinity as well - to be a distinct person, but not separated - more united and more distinct. Distinct because loved and indwelled, not because objectified and separated. Maybe this is how the Three Persons experience there differences and unity? Beyond our grasp, of course.

This experience of being called by name strengthens such qualities us:

(1) responsibility for our actions
(2) desire to do good
(3) humility and creatureliness
(4) deep respect for the freedom of others and for our own freedom of choice
(5) respect for our (and other's) uniqueness, the value of our life, history and personal fate, respect for being who we are and being loved by God anyway

I also felt that God has the same, unique relationship with other people, standing beside me in the church, and I felt great love and respect for those people, for they are loved by God too.

And, at the end, there are some beautiful images from the Bible which express this mystery:

God calls Samuel in his sleep: "Samuel, Samuel..." And he gets up and wonders who it is.

Jesus calls Matthew, my personal saint, by name and draws him out of his sinful life.


BTW, I remember Emmanuel Levinas and his philosophy. Much relevant here. Have you read him?

mateusz:


That is a delightful way of understanding personhood, and may be similar to Phil's description of God creating through the Word (He's given a link on another thread). Just as He creates each of us, each creature, in this way, our unique spirit is generated by Him in the act of creation.

Isn't personhood wonderful to ponder! It isn't reducible to self, or awareness, or energy, etc . . . As you say, a kind of secret infusion of God, perhaps how each of us can experience being in His image, child to Daddy who calls us by name, yet full of the creaturely sense of being before Majesty. And not being able to objectify personhood, as you alluded to on the new thread Phil started, further reveals how this is a gift from Him. Moreover, I cannot ever see or feel around the corner of my own personhood when I ponder this, no less than when being with someone else; it is belonging to the realm of persons, as well. So while each of us is inviolable as a person, there is a communion of persons implied in personhood. And I think there is somehow an ability of the other to touch my own person for me, and not just see me in ways I'm ignorant, but actualize the gift of personhood in receptivity of relations; this receptivity of personhood implies the gift/grace and the depth we can never exhaust. And so God loves each of us equally because He loves each of us infinitely and eternally. There's no exhausting that!

On another note, I'd say that most psychopathology can be characterized as losing the sense of personhood. One can see it, in its various expressions, as an internal sense of not belonging in relation to other persons, or not feeling pre-reflectively that one exists in the heart and mind of another person as a person.

I'm reading Helminiak's book "The human core of spirituality" (I had an impression that you think here it's a good book so I ordered it ). A nice sentence from it about our little flesh/spirit discussion:

"For Paul, flesh simply means the whole human being insofar as one is sinful, and spirit means the whole human being insofar as one is open to God."

Great.

So it seems we're 100% body and 100% spirit, not 50/50 - I like the idea . It's a bit like hypostatic union... not that I'm comparing...

When I'm done reading Helminiak, maybe we could talk about him a bit? But I don't know when will that be.

I'm glad to hear you're giving Helminiak's book a read, mateusz. I think it's a very important work, especially for those who aren't familiar with Lonergan's approach. If you like The human core of spirituality, you might also want to get Religion and the Human Sciences, which is a companion book, in which he provides a thorough critique of Wilber's work.

We've had some discussions of Helminiak. See http://shalomplace.com/ubb/ult...;f=2;t=000192#000000 as one example.

I second w.c.'s affirmation of your fine post above.

quote:

Then, even if we are enlightened non-dually, we can still affirm our personhood, when we have relationship with God and we are open to His voice calling us with love. This more or less happened to me recently, when I was called out of non-conceptual, pre-reflective awareness into relation of love, and was given a sense of self and personhood - different from "self-contraction" and different from "no-self".
perhaps it's an image of the Trinity as well - to be a distinct person, but not separated - more united and more distinct. Distinct because loved and indwelled, not because objectified and separated. Maybe this is how the Three Persons experience there differences and unity? Beyond our grasp, of course.

Yes! There really is an authentic subject of this life who is not merely a consequence of self-contraction or an illusory construct created by the mind! It is created moment-by-moment and is the agent responsible for how this life is lived. I think your reflections on this shed more light on what it means to be created in God-the-Trinity's image and likeness.

Here's a great quote I found for Daily Spiritual Seed that reminded me of some of our exchanges, here. It indicates how one's manner of "faith-ing" makes all the difference.


Faith is not so much belief about God as it is total, personal trust in God, rising to a personal fellowship with God that is stronger than anxiety and guilt, loneliness and all manner of disaster. The Christian's faith in Christ is trust in a Living Person, once crucified, dead, and buried, and now living forevermore. Call it, if you will, an assumption that ends as an assurance, or an experiment that ends as an experience, Christian faith is in fact a commitment that ends as a communion.
... Frederick Ward Kates

Phil:

Yes, this has been a meditation for me over the past few years. Here we all are - none of us by our own doing - upheld in millions of ways ever second beyond our ability to understand, let alone enact - by an Uncreated Presence which cannot be looked directly upon by creatures, yet Who is the tenderest Father/Mother wanting us to know His complete love, and making this possible so that none of our suffering or sin separates us from Him. It is our nature to breath, and His nature to love. And so the real mystery of God isn't in his terrible, mysterious vastness, but how that majesty and unbearable presence could/would enter human history and touch us with such yearning to know Him where we are somehow not incinerated in the process.

Very nicely worded, w.c.

- - -

You all check out http://christiannonduality.com/

Johnboy is webmaster and has done a good job gathering a number of resources. Some of the reflections will probably be too technical and philosophical for many readers, but that level of engagement is sorely needed.